In 1914, He made acquaintance with
Mao Zedong while at
Hunan Normal University, and the two would eventually become close friends. In April 1918, He and Mao founded the Xinmin Society. In 1920, the two friends also launched the Russian Study Institute. In July 1921, He and Mao traveled to Shanghai to attend the
1st National Congress of the Chinese Communist Party, as representatives of Changsha. After the congress, He became a member of the CCP's Hunan committee. During the first cooperation between the
Kuomintang (KMT) and the CCP, He was a member of the KMT's executive committee and the supervision committee of the KMT's local party in Hunan. In 1927, He went to Shanghai. After the
Shanghai massacre, He secretly established a print factory for the CCP in Changsha. In April 1928, He went to Russia to attend the
6th National Congress of the Chinese Communist Party. He then entered
Moscow Sun Yat-sen University, where his classmates included fellow party members
Xu Teli,
Wu Yuzhang,
Dong Biwu, and
Lin Boqu. In July 1930, He went back to China, and took charge of the National Huji Institute and organized the rescue and transfer to safe places of arrested communists. In the fall of 1931, He was elected to key posts in the
Jiangxi Soviet. Later, with his appointment arranged by Mao Zedong, he served as a member of the People's Committee of the
Chinese Soviet Republic as a secretary of worker-peasant inspection. However, he was dismissed from this position because he was targeted for criticism on the context of the campaign against the "Luo Ming Line" launched by
Bo Gu. Instead of taking part in the
Long March, however, He chose to stay behind in the south and engage in guerilla fighting. On February 24, 1935, He was surrounded and killed by Kuomintang troops in Changting, Fujian. == References ==